Primary vote hints at record

Early balloting at robust levels

Early voting in Shelby County ahead of Tennessee's presidential primary on Super Tuesday nearly tripled that of voting in 2004.

Combined with robust early voting statewide, officials said Friday that Tennessee could set a record for presidential primary turnout with 1 million voters.

In Shelby County, 30,746 voters cast ballots in early voting, up from 11,313 in 2004.

The last four days of early voting, which ended Thursday, drew 25,449 voters after the opening of satellite voting sites. There are a total of 611,704 voters on the county's rolls. Nearly 70 percent of those who voted in Shelby County participated in the Democratic primary.

Nearly 321,000 Tennesseans voted early this year, triple the statewide early voting total from 2004 and almost triple the total from 2000, said state Election Coordinator Brook Thompson.

The record turnout for a presidential primary in Tennessee was set in 1988, when Al Gore first ran for the Democratic nomination and about 830,000 voted in his home state.

&quot;I think it's possible that we could get to a million (votes on Tuesday),&quot; Thompson said. &quot;I don't know that we will, but I certainly think that we could get to the record that we had in '88.&quot;

Driving the heavy participation this year is the fact that no one has wrapped up the nomination in either party, he said.

&quot;We get to the Tennessee primary a lot of years and neither party's nomination is still really up in the air -- or only one. But this year it's both of them.&quot;

Also on the ballot in Shelby County on Tuesday are primaries for county assessor and General Sessions Court clerk.

County Election Commission chairwoman Myra Stiles expects voting to be strong, but doesn't anticipate long lines.

The winners of the county primaries will advance to the local general election Aug. 7. The presidential election is Nov. 4.